Parliamentary commission to investigate Vedat Aydın murder
10 May 2012
Parliamentary Human Rights Research Commission to investigate murder of closed HEP Diyarbakır Branch chair Vedat Aydın
Parliamentary Human Rights Research Commission will carried out an investigation into the murder of closed People’s Labor Party Diyarbakır Branch Chair Vedat Aydın who was a victim of an unidentified murder twenty one years ago. The investigation will also include the deaths and injuries caused by the fire opened on the mass joining his funeral ceremony in Diyarbakır.
The tortured body of Vedat Aydın was found two days after his being kidnapped from his house in Diyarbakır on 5 July of 1991. The investigation into Aydın’s murder will be conducted in Diyarbakır by the Parliamentary Sub-Commission on Investigation of Unidentified Murders.
Members of the commission will be in Diyarbakır as of the next week to listen to the family of Vedat Aydın and eye witnesses of the attack by special operation team units and confessors at Aydın’s funeral ceremony on 10 July 1991.
The investigation Specially Authorized Public Prosecutor of Diyarbakır launched into Aydın’s murder was extended following Aydın’s wife Şükran Aydın’s notice of recognition given one day before the dropping of the investigation due to prescription on 5 July 2011.
Şükran Aydın, in her testimony to Specially Authorized Public Prosecutor on 4 July 2011, mentioned Green code named contra-guerilla member Mahmut Yıldırım who, she said, was one of those by whom her husband was kidnapped. However, the investigation dropped due to prescription not long after the warrant of arrest the Public Prosecutor issued for Yıldırım on charges of “membership to an organization founded to commit a crime” and “intentionally committing a murder for the organization”.
Diyarbakır Police Directorate Intelligence Unit Head Hanefi Avcı, in his statement to Diyarbakır 6th High Criminal Court as a witness, mentioned JITEM as a unit under Gendarmerie Regional Security Command and said that; “Some officers within police, gendarmerie and MIT (National Intelligence Agency) directorates wanted to follow other unlawful ways in the fight against terror. I witnessed three events within the period I was serving there and I am of the opinion Vedat Aydın was one of those murdered by this group.”
Following the dropping of the investigation due to prescription of the investigation into Aydın’s death, three confessors were taken into custody for being involved in murder on 6 July 2011 but all three were released after bearing testimony to Specially Authorized Prosecutor.
Another confessor Abdülkadir Aygan who worked for JITEM after escaping from PKK, gave the names of the JITEM members who were involved in Aydın’s murder and said that;
“On 7 July 1991, several days after we had found out the address and details of Aydın’s house, I went to the JITEM office where Diyarbakır Group Commander said me that Vedat Aydın’s body had just been found.”
WHO IS VEDAT AYDIN?
Aydın who was taken into custody numerous times because of his works was jailed for four years in the period of 80 military coup, after which he was elected the Executive Board of IHD (Human Rights Association) Diyarbakır Branch. In September of 1990, he was arrested for making his speech at IHD General Board in Kurdish. He also refused to speak Turkish during his trial. Following his release several months later, he was elected the Branch Chair of IHD Diyarbakır Office. After Aydın was elected the chair of People’s Labor Party in June of 1991, he was on 5 July taken into custody in his house by a group of people who introduced themselves as police officers. His body which was found two days later under a bridge near Maden district of Elazığ had been tortured, his arms and legs broken and many bullets in his body.
Over a hundred thousand people joined Aydın’s funeral ceremony in Diyarbakır where special operation teams in masks and a group of confessors opened fire against the mass. More than twenty people were killed, around a thousand people were wounded in the attack.
D.F. - ANF / NEWS DESK
ANF NEWS AGENCY
